The prior art is documented with examples of pallet support assemblies and structures. A first example of this is depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 8,418,631, issued to Linares, which teaches a body having a buoyant inducing element for supporting upon a body of water. The buoyant inducing element includes a plurality of bladders deployable into an end-to-end perimeter extending arrangement relative to the body. In a further design, a pressurized tank is contained within the body and holds a volume of a compressed gas and in communication with the deployable bladders. The body may also include upper and lower vertically displaceable halves, with the elevation of the upper half causing one way air inlet valves disposed within a bottom surface of the lower halve to fill an expanded interior defined between the halves, via vacuum inlet pressure acting upon the one way valves.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,418,632, also to Linares, teaches a structurally reinforcing pallet having an insert exhibiting a three dimensional shape with a top, sides and bottom. A plasticized material is applied over the insert according to a selected thickness and in order to encapsulate the insert. A first plurality of upper edge projecting and positional locating rim portions are exhibited about a periphery of an insert incorporated into a first pallet and, in combination with a second mating plurality of recessed underside edge extending locations exhibited about a periphery of a further insert incorporated into a second pallet, enable multiple stacking of pallets in laterally stabilized fashion.
The prior art also documents various examples of pallet constructions, such as which are capable of being stacked in multiple fashion when not in use. A first example of this is depicted by the pallet construction of Palmer, U.S. Pat. No. 8,356,562, and having a first portion and a second portion that may be arranged in a use or nesting positions to help facilitate more efficient storage of the portions. The portions may also include one or more magnets that may be used to help secure the portions in the use position and/or the nested positions. The portions may include one or more interlocking and/or engaging features that may be used to help secure the portions in the use position and/or the nested positions. If desired, the first and second portions may be sized and configured to be independently used as pallets.
A further example of a magnetic pallet is depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 4,361,822, to Adler, which teaches a plurality of individual, flexible polymer magnetic strips in a double layer thickness between metallic front and back enclosure plates to provide a substantially continuous magnetic field across both of front and back planar surfaces. Other examples drawn from the prior art include the all in one multifunction pallet of Liu et al, US 2011/0061572, which teaches a main part of the pallet, collapsible supporting legs, belts, joint shafts coupled by nuts, and RFID tags.